Just to get all the Patagonia trip stuff in one easy-to-access reference location:

Birds

The ferry ride from Puero Montt to Puerto Natales

Puerto Natales

Torres del Paine National Park:

Day 1
Day 2
Day 3, part I
Day 3, part II
Day 3, part III
Day 4
Day 5
Day 6, part I
Day 6, part II
Day 7

Argentina: assorted photos

Argentina: Perito Moreno Glacier

Buenos Aires: cemetery & exotic trees

Labels: patagonia, south america, travel

This is the final post about my trip to Patagonia. Our final stop was in Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina. There wasn't much of geological interest that I saw there, but you might like to check out these images of the Recoleta Cemetery, a famous cemetery there. It's full of charming masoleums which are unique in design, and in various states of repair. (Eva Peron is buried here, which is what draws in most visitors.) Here's a view down one of the labyrinthine alleyways:


This masoleum looks like a miniature cathedral:


Several had art noveau details:




This one had an awesome stained glass onion dome bulging out the top:


Two-faced angel statue:


This caught my eye:


The grave belongs to an Argentinian surgeon, Francisco Muniz, who was also into paleontology:


Muniz apparently discovered the first glyptodont (though was not the first to publish it), and corresponded with Charles Darwin. There's a neat little review of his life here, at a website documenting the people interred at Recoleta Cemetery (a great resource if you ever visit it yourself).

Rising from a prominent intersection of pathways in the cemetary was this prominent Araucaria, which I think is a monkeypuzzle tree:


Monkeypuzzles are native to Patagonia, though other members of the genus may be found in New Caledonia, New Guinea, Norfolk Island, and Australia. I love monkeypuzzles: mainly for their awesome name, but also because they look like my idea of what prehistoric plants should look like. Here's one in El Calafate that someone decorated for Christmas:


Closer in, to see some details of its scaly leaves:


Perhaps this is a good image to close out the Patagonia series with, considering it blends the exotic monkeypuzzle with lovely old traditional holiday spirit (at least in my culture). What do I take from this?...

...Amid the prickly hazards of travel, you can find some exceptional gifts.

Labels: argentina, art, fossils, geologists, in-memoriam, patagonia, plants, south america, travel

Yesterday we looked at some other aspects of Argentina's Parque Nacional Los Glaciares (and the nearby town of El Calafate). Today, some pictures of ice.

Let's orient ourselves first, courtesy of some satellite imagery via Google Maps:

You can see the bright blue of Lago Argentino, including its southern arm, the Brazo Rico. Separating the Brazo Rico from the main part of the lake is the Magallanes Peninsula. And poking out from the white mass at left (the South Patagonian Ice Field) is a nice big valley glacier, the Perito Moreno Glacier. Notice how it pokes right into the Magallanes Peninsula, like a pin approaching a balloon. Occasionally, it surges forward and smooches the opposite shore, cutting the Brazo Rico off from the rest of the lake. When this happens, some spectacular collapses can occur.

The Perito Moreno Glacier is remarkably stable, due in part to its large catchment area and relatively narrow zone of ablation. This means that a bunch of park infrastructure has developed on the Magallanes Peninsula: viewing platforms and docks. The glacier moves forward at the same rate it loses ice through calving/melting: very consistent. We started off with the boat trip up to the glacier's terminus. Here's a view of the boat from above:


...And a view of the glacier's face from the boat:




Ice meets bedrock (plants watch warily):


Looking north from the viewing platform:












A little panorama (two shots spliced together):


So, at this point, I hope I have established that Perito Moreno Glacier is very accessible and very photogenic. It is also a lovely shade of blue. Thank you very much.

Labels: argentina, glaciation, patagonia, south america, travel

When you cross the border from Chile into Argentina, you see this sign:

If you aren't familiar with "Las Islas Malvinas," that's because they go by another name in English. Perhaps the detailed map will help clarify the location? The sign refers to the Falkland Islands, currently held by the United Kingdom. So the sign translates to, "The Falklands are Argentinian." The British and the Argentinians faught a war over the Falklands in 1982. The UK won, but Argentina maintains their claims of sovereignty. And as soon as you enter Argentina, they remind you of it. I think they hope you will take pictures of the sign and post them on your geology blog so the world is reminded of what they consider to be an imperial injustice.

The bus ride from Puerto Natales to El Calafate was long -- something like five hours. It went through some very empty country:

As we headed north, with the mountains to our west and wide-open plains to our east, I was reminded of Montana, specifically the Front Range southeast of Glacier National Park. It was very familiar feeling.

The landscape was semi-desert, as the eastward-moving air is drained of its moisture as it crosses the Andes. The rainshadow effect leaves this an area of steppe. The golden grasses draped on the dry hills bring to mind similar landscapes in Mongolia or Africa.


And there are even some birds that you might mistake for African species:

That's our best of many lousy pictures of the Lesser Rhea, also known as "Darwin's Rhea." It's a ratite bird, related to ostriches, emus, cassowaries, kiwi, and elephant birds (the last of which are extinct). The coolest rhea sighting we had was a family of little ones following their mom. The little ones look just like scaled-down miniature adults: Comical!

We stopped at an estancia (ranch) before entering Parque Nacional Los Glaciares, and Lily made friends with a horse there:

She used to have a horse on Hawaii, so this was sweet to see. When we walked off towards the rhea, he followed along, looking for more lovin' from his new American girlfriend.

We were in Argentina to see the massive Perito Moreno Glacier. It is the #1 tourist attraction in Argentina, and is located in Parque Nacional Los Glaciares ("The Glaciers National Park"). Here's our first view of it:


Now here's a test to see how true-blue your geological inclinations run. When you looked at that last picture, did you think to yourself, "What's up with those strata in the lower right? Are those turbidites?"

Yes, indeed. They are:

Alternating sand (blocky) and mud (weathered into low relief) remind us of the Magallanes Basin, which (like most geology) does not stop at the border...

Um, there's two clear joint sets there too.

Around the corner we saw some bivalve fossils and a few clastic dikes ("injectites"). Here's a small clastic dike:


When I brought up clastic dikes the other day when discussing Torres del Paine, Brian responded with some injectite photos of his own. You should check those out. Here's a bigger one from P.N. Los Glaciares:


I've got a ton of photos of Perito Moreno Glacier to show you, but it's really worth saving them for a second post. For now, let's just say: "We went and looked at the glacier for several hours and were very impressed." ...More on that tomorrow.

Then we were bussed back to El Calafate, the town which serves as the main access point for the park, and walked from our hostel towards downtown for some dinner. Along the way, we saw this cool outcrop:

That's very-poorly-lithified silt, peppered here and there with a few cobbles and boulders. The clasts bear scratches, suggesting they are glacially-delivered. The town of El Calafate is on the shore of a big lake called Lago Argentino, and I interpret this outcrop to mean that the lake was much larger and deeper in the past (perhaps dammed by a moraine which has since been partially breached?). In this deeper, earlier version of the lake, icebergs calved off of Perito Moreno Glacier and floated out to melt and drop their sedimentary loads in the offshore sediments. The big boulders and cobbles are therefore dropstones, though I wasn't able to confirm this diagnosis by looking for squished or truncated sedimentary laminations beneath them. (Given that this is earthquake country, I didn't want to be standing underneath those boulders for longer than it took to snap a photo!)

That evening, we had a really world-class meal. Salads and breads and fine Argentinan wine (we skipped the Mendoza stuff and got the Patagonian label, "Saurus." (Yes, as in lizards -- as in "giant, fossilized, terrible lizards"). And for the main course? Well... let's just say that if you're a vegetarian, you should probably stop reading at this point.

The Patagonians herd a lot of sheep, and so they eat of lot of lamb. They have one particular method of cooking this lamb which I was very keen to try because it seems so utterly brutal. Meat is murder, as they say: delicious murder. I am quite aware of the loss of life that comes with the consumption of meat. I have hunted, and I have killed animals in order to eat them. Many people opt not to think about this, and to access their meat in a box or a bag. But to the Patagonians, the death of their animals is both obvious and inoffensive. They slaughter their lamb, gut it and skin it, and then (this is the part that's brutal) they string it up to an iron cross, which is then tilted over a campfire so the lamb can roast slowly. They call it "crucified lamb."

It was delicious -- though the photo may appear shocking to some readers. But, hey: Catholics claim to eat crucified flesh every time they take communion, right? (Apologies in advance to all the transubstantiationists that I just offended.) ...Back to the lamb: I have a special place in my heart for the taste of mutton (I served in Peace Corps Mongolia in 1998-1999), and that familiar gamey tang was present here as well. But it was so much more tender, and served with a garlicky oregano olive oil-based sauce. Oh man, it was good. (Mongolians could learn a lot from Argentinians about how to spice their lamb.) I devoured it, and Lily had to roll me down the street, back to the hostel. Mmmmm....

Okay -- tomorrow you'll get some glacier photos.

Labels: argentina, birdies, england, food, joints, maps, mongolia, national parks, patagonia, sediment, south america, travel

Well... after a week in Parque Nacional Torres del Paine, it was time to head out of the wilderness and back to the relative civilization of Puerto Natales. We woke on the seventh day, and were pleased to see that the sun was hitting the Cuernos del Paine in a pleasing fashion:


Our tent in the foreground of the Cuernos del Paine:


We made our last batch of camp coffee and our last batch of oatmeal, and then started hiking out. As we walked along, we saw some interesting geology.

Here's a decent little weathering rind. Notice how the initially rectangular profile of this clast is being weathered towards a progressively more bread-loafy shape:


A small dextral fault offsetting turbidite layers:


Looking up into one of the valleys we passed on our way east, we saw an intact glacial end moraine sealing the valley shut.

I'm used to seeing these depositional features bisected by streams, but this one looked just like a wall built perpendicular to the valley trend. Erosion hasn't yet undermined it.

We arrived at the Torres area and fortified ourselves with Snickers bars dipped in peanut butter, then strolled on. There were a great many people there: somewhat shocking to the dirty backpackers...

As we hiked out from the Torres campground/village/tourist extravaganza to the entrance station at Laguna Amarga, we turned around and saw the Torres themselves, namesakes of the park, faintly through the misty distance:


Several kilometers on, we approached the Laguna Amarga Ranger Station, which is situated next to a lovely syncline in the Cerro Toro conglomerate:


Another view, from lower elevation, and closer to the axis of the fold:


Our time in Torres del Paine was unforgettable. Backpacking the Grand Circuit was a travel experience I would recommend to anyone with the ability and temperment to camp and hike in such gorgeous surroundings. It had been the primary goal of our trip, but we weren't done travelling yet. We headed back to Puerto Natales on the bus, and gorged ourselves on pizza that evening. We did laundry, got showered up, and slept like hibernating bears. In the morning, we boarded another bus, one that would take us across the border into Argentina...

Labels: chile, glacial landforms, national parks, patagonia, south america, structure, travel, weathering

You'll recall that our sixth day in Torres del Paine National Park had us hiking east from the Paine Grande Lodge. We hiked up over a ridge dividing Lago Pehoe from another turquoise-colored lake, Lago Nordenskjold:


At the so-called Italian Camp, we dropped our packs, and went for a small side hike. We turned to the north, and hiked up the French Valley:

The object of this day-hike was to see some glacier calving. The French Valley is famous for this: you sit back and watch, and big chunks of ice spall off the glaciers, crashing hundreds of feet below onto the rocks. A few seconds later, a sound like thunder reaches you: it was this that we came to experience.

Anybody seen a glacier around here? Rumor is that it was JUST here!

[The line demarcating vegetation above from bare rock below shows former height (and presence) of the glacier.]

Here's a look at the amphitheatre where our glacial show would be performed:


As the clouds cleared a bit, we could see an astonishingly thick cornice of snow/ice atop the mountain peaks. All the valleys up top had been filled in and smoothed off, and there was this white rim atop the black rock. The cornice is probably 40-100 feet thick in this photo:


An annotated photo of the area where we were observing the action:

What happened here was that a much larger glacier (see the vegetation line back a few photos) ablated away, splitting into two upper disconnected feeder glaciers, and a lower glacier which is now semi-buried in rocky debris (talus) and ice spalled off the upper glaciers.

A closer look at the annual growth layers revealed in the lower part of the glacier:


We soon saw some calving events. They were quite cool. Big booming noises, ice explosions seen through binoculars, eating chocolate and almonds. We were happy. Then we heard a roaring noise, like an airplane going overhead. We looked at the glaciers: nothing. What was making that noise? Then, from above, we saw it: coming down out of the clouds was a huge billowing white mass. Apparently, it was coming down from the cornice of snow atop the mountain. An avalanche! An honest-to-goodness avalanche! I have never seen one before; I was giddy at the spectacle. It looks just like a turbidity current, people, but it is white!

It was a magical thing to witness: watching it spread out and poof outward in hundreds of little round turbulent vortices. Everyone in the valley cheered: "YEAHHHH!!!!!"

Tough act to follow... but: Just east of us were the rugged Cuernos del Paine, a series of glacial horns made more photogenic by the pink stripe running through their middles, like a WWF Championship Belt:


This pink stripe is a granitic intrusion, approximately 12 Ma (Miocene*). Here is another photograph of the Cuernos, where the granite is very obvious:


We walked along the north shore of Lago Nordenskold towards the Cuernos campground...


Across the lake, some nice folds were visible:


The Cuernos campground is in this little nook. A lovely place to spend an afternoon and our final night in the park:


And it has very nice views of the Cuernos del Paine:


Seeing the Cuernos was the fulfillment of a decades-old dream for me. I think I saw them in an REI catalog (or perhaps a Patagonia catalog, hmm?) back when I was in college, and thought, "Wow. There's a place on Earth that really looks like that? I gotta go... someday." What I didn't expect then, and was pleased to see now that I was there, was the excellent evidence of stoping, one of the processes by which magma chambers enlarge their size and intrude into other rocks. Stoping is where chunks of the wall rock ("host rock" or "country rock") are broken off by inquisitive fingers of magma, and the liberated blocks (now xenoliths) drop into the magma chamber. Here, you can see (white arrows) some of these splurtles of granite working their way into cracks at the top of the magma chamber:


If these fingers of granite connect up, they separate the block of rock beneath them from the country rock (a form of physical weathering, like root wedging!). More dense than the surrounding magma, the resulting xenoliths sink. If the magma is still rather fluid, the xenoliths may now pile up on the floor of the intrusion. If it's getting to be mushy and semi-crystalline, their downward flow may be retarded, like a slice of banana trying to sink through thick oatmeal. As the granite crystallizes into rock, those xenoliths will be trapped somewhere between the ceiling (source area) and the bottom. Check out the diversity of xenolith positions (white arrows) displayed on this Cuerno:


Great looks at stoping here: some have fallen, some are still beginning to fall. I could easily have spent another two days just hiking along this contact, looking at this intrusive relations.

We spent our final night in the park enjoying the sounds of a nearby waterfall, nature's white noise machine. Only one more day in Torres del Paine...

Labels: chile, glacial landforms, glaciation, granite, ice, igneous, miocene, national parks, patagonia, south america, travel, weathering, xenoliths

Good timing! National Geographic's new issue (which we got yesterday) discusses many of the same regions of Patagonia that I've been describing here over the past two weeks. You won't find any graded beds in their pages, but they do have some spectactular imagery of the Grey Glacier (via NASA) and the Chilean coast. The NatGeo website has a nice slideshow of photos by Maria Stenzel. The story's lead image is... Torres del Paine.

Labels: chile, glaciation, national parks, patagonia, south america

You will recall that the first photo I showed you from Patagonia was this one:


That's from just outside the Paine Grande Lodge, where we stayed for our fifth night in the park. I rose at dawn and was fortunate to have the camera handy for a few minutes of good low-angle pink/orange light. By the time the coffee was finished, the sun had risen higher, and the "golden hour" had finished. The mountain now looked like this:


We began the day's hike, headed east along the southern face of the Paine Massif, aiming for the legendary Cuernos ("Horns") del Paine:


A last look back at aquamarine Lago Pehoe, with a Nothofagus tree in the foreground:


I saw a nice example of plumose structure in this boulder (fingertip for scale, far lower left):


After not seeing any conglomerate since the first day of hiking, we started encountering it again, meaning that we had hiked back sufficiently to the east to re-enter the Cerro Toro formation. The conglomerate was varied, and so in one ravine, I took the opportunity to photograph its many guises...












Nice mudstone rip-up clasts in this one:


One final sedimentary shot for this post: another graded bed, as viewed in cross-section:

I love graded beds. They're a key part of the geologic saga at my favorite DC-area locale (the Billy Goat Trail), and the ones in Torres del Paine were just classic: light-colored sand transitioning gradually into darker-colored mud, with a crisp boundary between each graded bed and its neighbors above and below. As noted before, these primary sedimentary structures are formed when a cascading turbidity current slows down and starts dumping its particles. The heaviest drop out first, the lightest in weight drop out last. Each graded bed = 1 turbidity current.

I've got a lot of other shots from Day 6, but I think I'll save them for a second post.

Labels: chile, national parks, patagonia, plants, primary structures, sediment, south america, structure, travel

On Boxing Day morn (Dec. 26), we woke at Refugio Grey, and took our camp stove outside. Just for a lark, we walked over to the shore where an iceberg had beached itself, and popped off a chunk to melt and make coffee:

You haven't really had coffee until you've had coffee made with water that's been locked out of the hydrologic cycle for 14,000 years!

With warm coffee and a granola bar apiece, we walked over the small peninsula where Regugio Grey is located to the bay on the other side. There, a flotilla of icebergs had rafted up against the peninsula. We decided to spend a little bit checking them out, before heading out on the day's (short) hike to the next refugio. We had it all to ourselves:


The icebergs varied tremendously in size, shape, color, and texture.


So, presented with a wealth of icebergs like this, what would you do? If you answered "put one on my head!" then apparently you think the same way that we do:


Silliness expended and coffee consumed, we grabbed our packs and hit the trail again. Today's destination was the Paine Grande Lodge. It wasn't an especially long hike, and it was essentially parallel to Lago Grey for most of the distance. Here's some more icebergs, further down the lake:


One geological site that really caught my attention was this sweet outcrop showing gorgeously folded turbidite layers. To give a sense of scale, each of those green bushes is about 1 meter in diameter:


Here's (white arrow) the Paine Grande Lodge, on the shore of a new lake (you can tell by the color), Lago Pehoe.


Closer in shows the detail of this nice, modern facility:



It was our second night indoors, and while it was a bummer that we had to share our room (6 bunks) with 4 other people, one 'up' side was that the Paine Grande took credit cards, which mean that the pisco sours were on Callan and Lily!

This is the lounge, with a nice woodstove and great views of the landscape for birdwatching or just sitting back and feeling satisfied. We spend a while hanging out here, particularly as a few rain squalls moved through.

The usual routine followed: dinner, bed, dawn, coffee, hiking... on to Day 6!

Labels: chile, glaciation, ice, patagonia, south america, structure, travel

Christmas day in Torres del Paine National Park: We packed up our gear at Paso Campground, and hit the trail in the rain. It rained on us for about an hour as we walked south, parallel to the downstream flow of the Grey Glacier, a huge gleaming presence to our right. Occasionally, the trail exited the forest as we had to cross deep ravines, like this one:


Snowmelt coming off the Paine Massif carved these ravines, and the park service had placed ladders in a few key locations, like this one:


Some people didn't like the ladders very much:


Once we got far enough along, we could see the terminus of the Grey Glacier:

Umm, wow.

Slightly different photo composition, with a tree in the foreground:


Nothing but terminus:


Looking south-ish, down the axis of Lago Grey:

Our destination for the evening was Refugio Grey, located on the far side of that first little hook-shaped peninsula.

Iceberg in Lago Grey:


Refugio Grey:

This was our first night spent under a roof on this trip. After three nights in a tent (me with a flat Therm-a-rest), it was quite luxurious to indulge in hot showers and a mattress! We also had a superb Christmas dinner behind those plate-glass windows, eating pork loin and drinking Gato and watching icebergs float by. It was pretty freaking cool.

That afternoon, we went for a walk down the beach, checking out the rocks. There were nice sedimentary structures and nice tectonic structures. Here's some trace fossils seen on one of the bedding planes of the turbidite strata:

I saw a fair amount of bioturbation in the turbidites, but this was without question the best exposure I saw.

Here's a tight little anticline:


Callan takes a nap in a little synclinal bed:


Flame structures with palimpsest glacial striations:


And another set, a few feet over to the right (same bed):

There appear to be some burrows here, too (the little circles of sandstone in the mudstone below the main sandstone contact).

We slept well that night. I was especially pleased by the fact that it rained for half the night (since I was sleeping indoors).

Labels: chile, fossils, glaciation, ice, patagonia, primary structures, south america, structure, travel

The final segment of day 3 in Torres del Paine National Park was crossing through John Gardner Pass and heading down the other side, being treated to our first view of the Grey Glacier.

Here's me huffing and puffing up the final snowfield below the pass:


...And then we were there! This is the highest point on the Grand Circuit. An "iron woman" trail runner took our photo atop the Pass:


The surrounding scenery spoke very clearly of recent glaciation, like these horns:


And it was here that we first got a look at the immense Grey Glacier...


Annotated panorama shot of the Grey Glacier:
It is an impressive thing, this massive tongue of ice. Sourced in the South Patagonian Ice Field, the Grey Glacier is the largest in Torres del Paine, and effectively divides the Paine Massif from the main chain of the Andes (visible on the other side). I've noted a promontory of bedrock poking up through the ice (a "nunatak") at left, and the position of a tributary glacier at right. I was quite struck by the 'deflation' of the Grey Glacier, as marked by the disparity between the current top of the glacial ice and the line where vegetation begins.

A closer look at the tributary glacier:


Crevasses galore, and a 'blue hole' where a stream is feeding into the base of the glacier:


A few more shots. It's very photogenic. I don't have anything to say about these. Just enjoy:








Peaks of the Paine massif enconced in ice and snow:


We camped that night at Paso Campground. It was Christmas Eve, and we drank some Gato vino tinto and made a delicious fish stew for dinner. We went to bed at dark, but our campground neighbors did the European / South American thing by staying up late celebrating with one another. At midnight they sang their final song and drank their last swig of whiskey, and then there was peace and quiet... so at least half the night was silent!

Labels: chile, glacial landforms, glaciation, ice, national parks, patagonia, snow, south america, travel

After our explorations of the Los Perros Glacier, its moraine, and the bedrock it has scraped so deliciously clean, we headed on up the trail, towards the highest point on Torres del Paine's Grand Circuit: Paso John Gardner. Here's a look back at the valley we've been hiking up from Refugio Dickson... Note the Los Perros moraine and the edge of the lake:


First graded bed of the day. I photographed this one for the lovely scours into the underlying muddy (dark) layer:


Another turbidite clast. Is that a clastic dike on the left?


I thought this was really cool, too. It's a vein: a fracture filled in with a mineral deposit. I really like here how you can see little shreddy flakes of the mudrock (dark) peeling back and flexing in the fracture's void space (prior to being locked in place by mineral deposits):

I interpret this to indicate that the fracture opened in a transtensional fashion, with the top to the right.

A ravine revealed this blind thrust:


Can't see it? Here's an annotated version. The thrust fault below morphs into a fold further up:


A sand-dominated series of graded beds:


Annotated below. Some of the turbidites I saw were a meter thick!

...and what's up with those rotty-appearing rusty spheres? (like the one left of my boot) I saw them several places... hematite concretions? (???)

Brace yourself. Here is possibly the most spectacular boulder I've ever seen:


Annotated version below. This boulder shows a series of graded beds (sand = light colored; mud = dark colored). The direction of gradation shows us that the boulder is upside-down relative to original depositional orientation. A couple of small flame structures reinforce this interpretation. It has been gently folded into a broad anticline (remember, it's upside-down!) and there appear to be some small "parasitic folds" superimposed on the broader fold (at boulder-bottom; depositional-top). Additionally, the turbidites are cross-cut by a small fault which has offset the layers. If I could choose just one boulder to be airlifted from Patagonia to the front of the Science Building at NOVA, this would be the one I would choose.


We keep hiking. We cross several snowfields and other bouldery alluvial aprons, interspersed with fingers of forest reaching up towards the hills. Looking up at the peaks, we can see turbidite layers intensely folded. Check out the straight-limbed anticline (left) and syncline (center) on this mountainside:


Looking up ahead -- there at the left center (between the two peaks) is John Gardner Pass:


We cross through a few more stretches of forest. This one really struck me: "Creep much?"

Besides the freeze-thaw soil-shoving action of creep, I think another factor for the J-shaped (or even L-shaped) tree trunks in this forest is the thick blanket of snow they get each winter: this tamps down the whole forest in a downhill direction.

Look! On the left! Another glacier!


...Shift the perspective a bit, and something else pops out. Once the hammy glacier is off-screen, you can see the wallflower in the background: A mountain composed of pink granite rather than black turbidites.


We keep climbing. Higher up, another opportunity for gazing down the valley we have climbed. The Los Perros Glacier moraine and lake are readily distinguishable even from this distance:


Up in the snow, we trudge higher and higher, and eventually reach the Pass. But for that, and for what we saw on the other side... I'm going to make you wait for Part III.

Labels: chile, glaciation, mass wasting, patagonia, primary structures, south america, structure, travel

Day 3 of our backpacking tour in Torres del Paine National Park (Chile) was an especially rich one. There's so much material to share that I'm going to divide the day up into three chunks: (I) the area around Los Perros Glacier, (II) the area on the east side of John Gardner Pass, and (III) the area west of John Gardner Pass, including the Grey Glacier.

We begin in Los Perros. As you will recall from our last installment, Lily and I had put in a long day of hiking, essentially pulling double duty by hiking all the way from Seron to Los Perros, and skipping Dickson in between. Because the park only allows camping in certain designated areas, trekkers are often put in the position of either hiking less than they want on a certain day, or more than they want. Day 2 was more than we wanted. We slept heavily, and woke to a drier world. We made coffee (we tried out those new Starbucks "Via" instant coffee packets on this trip and found them reasonably acceptable) and decided that before the day's slog, we should backtrack a bit to the Los Perros Glacier and check it out in more detail. As we were hiking in to camp the previous evening, we only had a 5 minute window of decent weather to view the glacier and its surroundings, so we wanted to see what we had missed.

It was a good call. I really enjoyed poking around there. To start with, check out this perspective view down the valley we had hiked up the previous day, the horseshoe-shaped glacial moraine, and the gray-colored glacial lake backed up behind the moraine:


A closer look at the till making up the moraine:


...And in another direction, too:


Composite stitched together of the moraine-dammed lake, using both of the previous two photos plus three others:


Looking down the axis of the lateral part of the moraine (perspective is towards the glacier, though the ice itself is hidden by the bedrock ridge):


"Lil on till":


We walked towards the glacier, checking out the accumulation of icebergs up against the moraine:


A closer look at the terminus of the glacier:


It was a cool place to look at rocks, too. Everything was so fresh, since the glacier had so recently scraped them clean. In this photo, looking across the lake, you can see the line where the vegetation abruptly stops, showing where the glacier was until relatively recently, when it receded to its present position.

A little lateral moraine clings to the walls of the valley. Where it has been eroded away, you can see details of the bedrock, like the granite dike visible on the left.

If you look carefully in this photo, you will see a large vertical granite dike. Follow along in the direction I am pointing. Hopefully you will be able to find it:


This dike continued out into the space where the glacier eventually carved the valley where the lake now sits. But in the middle of the lake is an island, and right along strike from the big granite dike, you can see a granite dike cutting across the rock of the island:

I'll bet it's the same one.

These dikes had some cool details revealed in the area around Los Perros Glacier. Here's an explosion of dark xenoliths in one intrusion. This is clearly intrusive, because it cuts across several turbidite layers, but I was confused about the texture. I expected granite, but it really looked kind of like... sandstone.

I know there are some clastic dikes in the area, and this may be one of them. I've never seen clastic dikes before, but I guess this is what I would imagine they would look like.

...and how about this???

I think that's two clastic dikes cross-cutting a turbidite bed. A nice relative dating exercise, eh?

Some Z-folds reconfigure quartz-filled tension gashes:


I also found a cool little chunk which showed a nice set of concentric ribs:


Classic slickenlines, lacking those gaudy crystal fiber lineations you usually see on fault surfaces. This is gouging, pure and unadulterated and simple:


Such geological goodies! It's better than instant coffee for perking a fellow up in the morning hours. Energized and invigorated, we headed back to Los Perros Camp for our packs, and hit the trail, heading further up the valley. More on that in part II!

Labels: chile, glacial landforms, glaciation, granite, igneous, patagonia, primary structures, sediment, south america, structure, travel, xenoliths

Remember how I was lamenting the carbon footprint of my globetrotting?

Here's a nice summary of that issue in an image:

Smoke from the engines of the M.V. Evangelistas drifts across the terminus of the largest valley glacier in South America.

Labels: chile, climate change, CO2, environmental, glaciation, global warming, patagonia, south america, travel

From Puerto Natales, we took a bus with other backpackery types north to Torres del Paine National Park, the main object of our trip. It was a bit rainy when we left the bus and walked off into the park, aiming to complete the Grand Circuit, a 7-day, 100-km hike around the Paine Massif. Heading down the trail:


Google Map of the Paine Massif, the main focus of the national park:

It's a little offshoot of the main Andean cordillera, a relatively isolated block of mountains rising from the Patagonian steppe. The park is named for some towers ("torres" in Spanish) in the eastern part of the massif. The word "paine" ("pie-nay") apparently means "light blue" in the pre-Spanish native language. This is apparently because many of the lakes (so prominent in these maps) are light blue in color due to the large influx of suspended glacial "milk."

Here's the specific route we took (approximately) in blue:

We hiked in a counter-clockwise direction.

So we started off over in the eastern part of the park, headed north by northwest. We were hiking through steppe, with the snow-covered mountains rising to the west:


...But wait, what's that on the horizon?

Guanacos! These are camellids -- related to the better-known llamas of Peru.

Thumbs-up for guanacos!


The rocks of Torres del Paine are mainly Cretaceous-aged turbidites (shale, graywacke, and conglomerate), intruded by granitic magma in the Eocene. All along the whole trip, I was drooling over the many beautiful graded beds I saw. Here's the first photogenic graded bed I found, with the paleo-top of the bed at the top of the photograph:


These rocks of the Cerro Toro Formation were deposited in the Magallanes Basin, a Cretaceous to Paleogene retroarc foreland basin. Brian Romans of Clastic Detritus shared some information with me before I went down to Patagonia, and I am indebted to him for the insights I gleaned from that sharing. However, any errors in identification or interpretation are my own. According to the model of Romans, et al. (2009)*, a fold and thrust belt was operating to the west, and an elongate north-south oriented submarine trough flexed downward east of that during the Cretaceous. Mud and sand and gravel flowed into this sedimentary basin mainly from the north in three phases which can be contrasted readily with one another in terms of depositional style and confinement of depositional area. These three phases of deposition correlate to different facies, and are exposed well in the area north of Puerto Natales due to subsequent deformation and uplift (not to mention recent deglaciation).

I'm a structural geologist, and deformation is what I am all about, but I honestly didn't expect to see much structure when in Torres del Paine. (I was eagerly anticipating the graded bedding, though!) So it was somewhat shocking to see some very deformed turbidites on that first day of hiking. Here's me standing on the edge of the Paine River, surrounded by tilted turbidite strata:


...And this stuff was really messed up:


Zoomed-in, you can see some severe folding and faulting having shuffled up these rocks:


We hiked about six or seven miles that first day, and camped at a place called Seron. The park has set up these dozen or so campgrounds where you are allowed legally to camp. Some are free, some cost a few bucks. Seron cost about $8 per person to camp there, but we got hot showers with that cost: Nice! The sun set on our first day, and we slept well.


More soon, on our second day of hiking...
____________________________________________
* Romans, B.W., Fildani, A., and Hubbard, S.M., 2009. "Controls on Deep-Water Stratigraphic Architecture," in Stratigraphic Evolution of Deep-Water Architecture: Examples of controls and depositional styles from the Magallanes Basin, southern Chile, SEPM Field Guide No. 10, p. 7.

Labels: chile, cretaceous, eocene, mammals, maps, national parks, paleocene, patagonia, primary structures, rain, sediment, snow, south america, structure, travel

Here's a few shots in and around Puerto Natales, Chile, the point of our disembarkation from the M.V. Evangelistas (Navimag ferry).

Arriving in port:


On the waterfront, we see Black-necked swans (!!) with some Chiloe widgeon:


While I was looking up the duck in my field guide, a mylodon (giant ground sloth) snuck up behind me:


...Just kidding. It's a statue, not a real mylodon. They went extinct along with the rest of the Pleistocene megafauna. There's a cave near Puerto Natales where mylodon remains have been found. A scrap of hairy skin made its way to the home of Bruce Chatwin, inspriring him to eventually travel to Patagonia and write the classic book In Patagonia as a result. This book was a fundamental source of inspiration for me to travel to the region. I re-read it during my trip there this winter, and so I was pleased to see Mr. Mylodon.


Puerto Natales has capitalized on the mylodon. All the street signs have a little silhouette of him rearing up. At the statue, Lily pulled on his tail:


The foundation for the mylodon statue had a lot of interesting rocks incorporated into it. By the ground sloth's left foot, there was a nice collection of spherical concretions:


Aside from birdwatching and mylodon-harassment, we spent the afternoon organizing our gear and buying food for our backpacking trip. From Puerto Natales, we took a bus up to Torres del Paine National Park...

Labels: birdies, books, chile, concretions, fossils, mammals, patagonia, pleistocene, south america, travel

OK, time to start showing some photos from this winter's trip down to Patagonia. Today, I'll talk about our journey south from Puerto Montt, Chile, to Puerto Natales, Chile. We took a ferry, the M.V. Evangelistas, operated by Navigaciones Magallanes, better known as Navimag. We flew through Santiago, and had to spend a couple hours laying over in that airport. During that time, we checked out this tower of luggage that had been set up in an otherwise-unused space:



Black-fronted ibis (see full bird list here) in Puerto Montt:


The Evangelistas in port, prior to our departure:


Steaming out of Puerto Montt, we got good looks at two volcanoes. The smooth white one on the left (north) is Volcan Osorno, and the craggier one on the right (south) is Calbuco:

Heavy cloud cover prevented us from seeing Chaiten the next day, which was a bummer considering all the press it got for its eruption in 2008.

A few shots to show the scenery typical of the next three days as we sailed south towards Puerto Natales:










A ship that ran aground in the 1960s:


We passed a lot of the time in birdwatching. Peering over the deck with binoculars pressed to your eyesockets is a good way to attract other birders. So we made friends with Rory and Leann, a South African couple on a month-long tour of South America. That's Rory in the red jacket:


Doing this, I saw my first penguin, dozens (hundreds?) of albatrosses, and the flightless steamer duck, which is, as Rory enthusiastically pointed out, "a f#%king flightless duck!"




When I see a new species, I note the date and location in my bird guide:


One day, we made a detour to go check out the "Pio XI" or Bruggen Glacier draining into the ocean from the South Patagonian Ice Field (fourth largest ice sheet in the world, after Antarctica, Greenland, and the Elias-Kluane ice field in Alaska and Canada). The Bruggen Glacier is the longest in the southern hemisphere, outside of Antarctica. It is the largest glacier in South America. And it is named for a Chilean geologist!


Here's a satellite view of the area, courtesy of NASA's Earth Observatory:

On the way over to the glacier, we saw the first iceberg of the trip:

Note all the sediment in that ice: it's dirty stuff!

Getting closer:


Closer still, and a medial moraine becomes visible as a dirty stripe running through the middle of the glacier:


Happy tourists:


Continuing south, we encountered more and more islands, and in many places the channel through which the Evangelistas sailed was quite narrow.




At one point, we squeezed through this NARROW gap:


Finally, we approached Puerto Natales, a small town that serves as the main access point for Torres del Paine National Park:


Looking in the opposite direction, I was pleased to see a broad syncline screaming out from the mountainside:


More on Puerto Natales this weekend...

Labels: birdies, chile, glacial landforms, glaciation, mountains, oceans, patagonia, satellite imagery, south america, structure, travel, volcano

So I'm in Patagonia right now, doing the thing I love to do most: travel across my home planet, checking out its less explored corners. Chile and Argentina are my 20th and 21st countries to visit. It is my second trip to South America. I've also travelled twice to Africa, four times to Asia (including my stint in Peace Corps Mongolia), and extensive travels in North America. I've only hit North Atlantic island nations as far as Europe is concerned. I've been to Australia once. I have not been to Antarctica.

So why am I listing all of this?

Because I'm a freaking hypocrite. I'm very concerned about how humanity is altering atmospheric chemistry, and what that's going to do to our (shared) planet's natural systems. Because I am convinced that we are releasing carbon into the atmosphere at a faster rate than natural systems can remove it, we are endangering ourselves (or at least some of ourselves) and also endangering the ecosystems that we depend on. I recognize the role the individual can/might/should play in reducing their personal carbon emissions through efficiency and lifestyle choices. I drive a Prius, use energy efficient light bulbs, recycle my cans and bottles and paper, serve on the College's "Green Committee," and teach (and blog) about the science underlying environmental issues, like climate change. I'm spreading the word, see?

But I really love to travel, and travel is a high-carbon endeavor. The best thing I could do for the world would probably be to stay home, but home gets stale. The world is big and diverse and full of landscapes and people and food and culture and birds and all kinds of interesting things. And there is nothing like getting out there and experiencing it firsthand. My time on this planet is finite, maybe close to half used up (assuming an average lifespan). What am I going to do during my time here? I figure I should live morally, attempt to improve things a bit, and enjoy myself. And I enjoy travelling more than anything else. I don't have kids (or an interest in having them), I'm not a religious person, I'm not tied down to a garden or a dog or a network of people that can't live without me. There's little to keep me in town when the opportunity for travel arises. And I have a career which gives me three and a half weeks off each winter and three months off each summer, plus a week of spring break. I have chosen my career in no small part because of the tremendous amount of free time it grants me each year. (Having a third of the year "off" makes up for the fifteen hour days I work during the fall and spring semesters, I reckon.)

My philosophy of life is essentially to facilitate and accrue a suite of fond memories and cool experiences. My goal is to enjoy my limited time here. Secondary goals: be a good person, help others out, learn as much as possible about the world I will spend my life in, share this perspective by spreading an understanding of the natural world, be creative, be responsible (but not so responsible, CO2-wise, that it cripples Goal #1). I am aware that this is a fundamentally self-centered approach, and I accept it.

So I know that there is a tangible global negative to my jetsetting habits, but the personal positive is what sways me. I'm going to keep travelling, because although environmental concerns mean a lot to me, experiencing the world means even more.

So that's my philosophical postcard from the austral hemisphere. ...Wish you were here!

--Mr. Hypocrite

Labels: argentina, chile, climate change, CO2, energy, environmental, global warming, patagonia, science and society, south america, travel

...from Google Maps:







The last one is where I am today, as this post automatically publishes. With any luck at all, I'll be over there by the glacier in the northwest. Merry Christmas from Patagonia, all!

Labels: art, chile, maps, south america

Here's a Google Map I made up to show you where I'll be for the next few weeks. Hopefully, by the time you read this, we will be arriving in Puerto Montt, Chile. Tomorrow we get on a ferry and sail down the Chilean coast.

Zoom in on the southern area to see our hiking route (red) around Torres del Paine National Park. More details available by clicking on the different bits. I'm very excited.

Labels: argentina, chile, patagonia, south america, travel

Holy cow... Have you seen this?



I found a reproduction of this lovely map in the pages of this month's Discover magazine. It is a map of the most remote places on our planet, as defined by their distance from major cities (and also shipping channels). The scale at the bottom shows you how many hours (or days) it would take to get from pixel A to the nearest city. The darkest spots are the most remote ones.

The map was produced by Andrew Nelson of the Global Environmental Monitoring Unit of the European Commission. It is available here in a bigger form. They grant authorization to reproduce it, so long as you attribute them as the authors. Amazing work, Mr. Nelson; Gorgeous!
The Sahara, the Amazon Basin, the Australian Outback, New Guinea, boreal Canada, Greenland, the Rub' al Khali, northern Siberia, the interior of Borneo, and the Tibetan Plateau all jump out as remote locations. I post this map today because this evening I'm getting on a plane and heading for another remote location, the dark spot down at the southern tip of South America. Lily and I are spending the holidays in Patagonia. I'll be there for the next two and a half weeks, and I'll be back to DC and NOVA in the new year. To keep you amused in the meantime, I've scheduled posts to appear here on the blog while I am away. Enjoy your holidays!

Labels: maps, patagonia, science and society, south america, travel

Lola helps me plan a winter break journey...

She goes berserk for large expanses of paper... A few minutes after I took this picture, the little brat punched a hole in the map and ran off in a sprint. Sheesh.

Labels: argentina, chile, lola, maps, patagonia, south america, travel

Lichens are symbiotic associations between fungi and algae. The fungus provides the alga with a place to live, and the alga photosynthesizes and shares some of the resulting 'food' with the fungus. One provides room; the other provides board. It benefits both species to hang out together, and provides a nice example of two phylogenetic 'branches' of the 'tree of life' merging into one. There are many varieties of lichens, living in a diversity of habitats, but they're easiest to spot in colder zones where they are first in line to colonize raw rock surfaces.

When I was in Ecuador in January, I saw a lot of lichens, and took some photos of them. I'm not a lichen expert, and I won't attempt to name these varieties. I'm more interested in them as aesthetic phenomena. I find them beautiful.

This one reminds me of ripples on a pond's surface, spreading out over decades and centuries:


The orange here is also a lichen:


These wispy lichens were three-dimensional structures that were found all over the ground surface (not encrusted on a rock) in the paramo ecosystem.


They were present in such profusion in Cotopaxi National Park that the ground looked from a distance as if it had a light layer of snow on it:


Other ground lichens:




Lichen-bearded goofball:

Labels: ecuador, fungi, humor, plants, south america, travel

For the penultimate post in my Ecuador travel series, I hereby recount the story of climbing the mountain called Iliniza Norte (16,997 feet above sea level: the tallest peak I've ever summitted).

We began by driving up from the town of Chaupi, where we were staying at a hostel, to the trailhead above treeline in the paramo ecosystem...


We had hoped for awesome weather, but as with our previous peak bagging in Ecuador, the clouds were here too, making a ceiling that we headed up into...




Heading up into the clouds; the valley below fades away...


...and we start to see snow.






We went up a long, steep snowfield for probably two hours... It was frustrating going: take one step forward, slide two steps backward. The snow got thicker and thicker...

Eventually, when we got close to the summit, we got off the snowfield and onto some rocks. I was surprised to feel how my energy spiked at the prospect of rock-scrambling. The long slog up the snowfield was boring and repetitive, but this was totally engaging as a physical/mental workout. Here's Lily and Diego climbing up:



At the summit, there's a steel cross with various doodads attached...


This is the highest point above sea level I've ever experienced. When I stood on the summit, my head was above 17,000 feet in elevation!



Silly video of the summit team making celebratory noises:


Then Diego said, "I think we go down now, because of thunders."

The guy knows his stuff: as soon as he had said this, we heard a ba-boom from off in the white clouds somewhere... Yikes. Okay, time to head down.

Descending the rocks:


When we got to the snowfield, another peal of thunder sounded, and this one was louder than the first one. The snowfield, fortunately, made for easy going -- we essentially skied down it. It was pretty exciting... Flashes of lightning, booms of thunder (sometimes within a microsecond of one another), adrenaline pumping, running/sliding/skiing downhill as fast as we could.

We did not get hit by lightning.

After we got below cloud level (and into a valley where we felt a little less exposed to lightning strikes), we could see that the lower elevations had gotten some frozen precipitation too: a mix of snow and hail:











When we got back to the vehicle, we found it covered in hail:


Now for the adventure after the adventure: driving down a steep, twisting, muddy mountain road that's coated with hail and host to numerous roaring streams of runoff. It was almost as intense as descending the snowfield amid lightning bolts: the vehicle slid and knocked against a mud embankment at one point, and it was all seriously sketchy. Diego said he had never seen anything like it.

Here's some video of a raging torrent of meltwater/runoff flowing over a road surface that's decorated with white hailstones:



We did not crash the car.

Back safely at the hostel, we took hot showers and drank beer and congratulated ourselves for clearly being such daring adventurers. Whew... the next morning, we took our weary selves back to Quito.

One more Ecuador post to go... on lichens... stay tuned.

Labels: ecuador, ice, mountains, snow, south america, travel, volcano

As you'll recall, when I left off with my Ecuadorian travelouge, Lily and I had summited Pasochoa, and then taken a day-hike in Cotopaxi National Park. Next up, a new mountain that has about the same elevation as Mt. Whitney (highest peak in the lower 48 United States): about 14,500 feet. To climb this extinct volcano called Ruminahui (Roo-min-ya-wee), we headed up a ridge between two adjacent glacially-carved valleys.















Me with clouds and background glacial valley:


Diego (our guide) on the trail:


Up on top, there was less vegetation, but more cloud... and snow was falling.

The bedrock was a volcanic breccia that had been cut by numerous andesitic dikes:






You can see some blurry snowflakes in the previous photo. Here's a cold-looking Lily with her boots on an andesitic dike:



Here's a couple of close-ups to show the cross-cutting relationships between the andesite dikes and the volcanic breccia:





Here's a short, not-especially-great video wherein I point out a few things that don't really show up all that well. Still, you get to see it snowing!

A big "thanks" to NOVA's king of digital video, Richard Attix, who helped me rotate this video and crop out some unintended footage from the raw video we shot on the mountain that day.

Cold hikers:



"Sheesh! It's cold up here!":



On the way down, we also took some time to check out the plants. Here's one called "Orejas de conejo" ("Ears of the rabbit"):

Here's one that smells exactly like chocolate!


In fact, Lily was able to harvest this chocolate bar from it!

Okay, not really. It's money that grows on trees, not chocolate bars.

So that's the story of our second successful summit... now there was only one more to go... the legendary Iliniza Norte. Photos from that hike in a couple of days...

Labels: ecuador, glacial landforms, mountains, plants, sediment, south america, travel, volcano

We now return you to our originally-scheduled photo-travelogue...

On the second day of our Andean mountain tour in Ecuador, Lily and I set out from Tambopaxi Lodge, our comfortable accomodation in Cotopaxi National Park:



We were going for a day-hike, checking out the scenery with our guide Diego while we acclimatized for some more serious mountain climbing in the days to come. The official goal of our hike was to check out two naturally-flowing cold springs, where the agua was pura, and safe to drink. Here's the first one, issuing from the base of a lava flow, with me awkwardly twisting around to raise a bottle of the good stuff:



Spring #2, of greater volume:


Some shots of the scenery:







The extinct volcano Sincholagua:


Me with Sincholagua (and lower cloud cover) in the distance:

A look back at Pasochoa, which we had climbed the day before:


And Cotopaxi itself, the charismatic, active volcano which draws most people to the park:


Critters:

A big insect, maybe a grylloblattid?


Feral horses:


We also saw some cool "primitive" plants (plants with ancient lineages):

Liverworts:


Sphenopsids:


Club mosses:


There was also some geology going on...

Here's a handful of loose lapilli (mixed in with some organics):


Stream deposits on the flanks of Cotopaxi Volcano, showing different water energy regimes. The coarsest layer in the middle represents the fastest moving water (capable of carrying larger particles of sediment):


And here's some flow-banding in andesite:


It started raining on our way back to the lodge, but that was okay, because hot showers and warm tea awaited there. Acclimatization, check! Next up, the peak known as Ruminahui...

Labels: arthropods, critters, ecuador, geology, mammals, plants, south america, travel, volcano

I went to Ecuador to climb mountains.

After a lovely two days of recovery in the thermal springs of Papallacta, Lily and I began our mountain-climbing tour. We summited three peaks in the central Ecuadorian Andes: Pasochoa, Ruminahui, and Iliniza Norte. Today I'd like to share our experiences climbing the first (and shortest) of those, the peak called Pasochoa. Here it is from the rough road we drove in on:



From a Google Maps perspective, here's the physiography of the surrounding area. Pasochoa is the highest peak of the central volcano in this view:



Once we started hiking, we got above the trees and into the paramo ecosystem, a high-elevation grassland biome that exists between treeline and the bare rocks above where only lichens survive. Another view of the peak, which is about 13,700 feet in elevation:



Once we got up a little bit, we could look down to the Valle de los Chillos, a massive valley between Andean peaks, south of Quito:



One of the most spectacular things that happened on this hike is we saw an Andean condor, which flew by between us and this view, quite spectacularly. We weren't able to get the camera out in time to capture it, but with its black and white plumage, it was unmistakeable. Here's a amateurish Photoshop to show what it kind of looked like:



I pointed out the volcanic breccia to Lily and our guide, Diego:



More of the same could be seen in eroded-out minarets on the flanks of the mountain:




Pasochoa is one tall bit along the rim of a much larger caldera, and when we got up to the edge of that caldera, we got a real sense of its sudden drop-off. Clouds/fog curled up and over the lip, obscuring the view, but we could peer down into them and see that the land dropped steeply away for many hundreds of feet.



Lily gives a sense of scale to the edge of the caldera:



After lunch on top, more clouds moved in, and we decided to decamp back to the vehicle. Here's Diego and I descending the trail towards lower elevations.



Being a guy who had just recently recovered from something akin to pneumonia, I felt pretty good about making the summit of a 13,700' peak. Next up: let's see if we can't find something a little bit taller...

Labels: birdies, ecuador, mountains, south america, travel, volcano

Here's a pretty cool outcrop I found as we were leaving Cotopaxi National Park in Ecuador (in early January). I've got two small photos taken laterally on different parts of the outcrop (exposed by a stream), and then I follow those with two close-up crops, showing the details. I've posted the full-size versions of the first two photos on Flickr, so you can click through if you want more details. The zoomed-in shots are displayed here at the same size you'll find on Flickr.





What's going on here? It looks like we've got a series of thinner, relatively fine-grained layers below, topped off with a massive, poorly-sorted layer. The lower layers are all ash- and lapilli-sized grains, each stratum pretty well sorted. The upper layer consists of all kinds of different-sized chunks, including some boulders, "floating" in a really fine-grained matrix. Check it out:





I interpret this as a series of volcanic ash-(& lapilli-)falls that were then buried beneath a lahar, a volcanic mudflow. The lahar's slurry-like consistency was capable of transporting really large clasts, and when it slowed down, it set up like nature's concrete.

I think this is pretty spectacular stuff.

Labels: ecuador, igneous, mass wasting, south america, stratigraphy, travel, volcano

You know what feels really good when you're feeling sick? A hot bath.

And so, when it came to pass that over the winter break, I flew down to Ecuador with a recovering case of pneumonia, my friend Lily and I opted to put our mountain-climbing plans on hold, and go sit in some hot water instead.



From Quito, we took a public bus ($2) an hour east to a series of thermal pools at Papallacta ("papa yacht uh"). This is a lovely resort, nestled in a lovely valley:



Inside the resort (>$2), the architecture was fused with the landscaping in some interesting pseudo-natural ways. For instance, this is in the lounge, where the rocky wall rises up, but then stops some distance below where the wooden ceiling begins. The interval is filled with glass, but the illusion is that the building is open to nature.



They've got nice grounds, too. An organic garden is featured, and they have some neat sculptures. This one is clearly inspired by Andy Goldsworthy.



But there was a mystery... The local river, which carved the valley, was cold:



...So where did the hot water come from? We had noticed some steaming pools on the bus ride over the Andes, at higher elevation. Taking a walk on our second day there, we saw this aqueduct coming down the mountain into the valley:



Aha! It must be that they are pulling the hot water out of the actual hot springs up above, then piping it down to Papallacta for people to enjoy.

Papallacta is just south of the Equator:



At the Equator, Papallacta's elevation of ~10,000 feet (~3300 m) is quite pleasant. A tad chilly when it's dark or overcast, but the snow was at a higher elevation still:



Hiking around in between soaks in the lovely hot water, we saw hummingbirds galore, including the bizarre sword-billed hummingbird, which has a beak longer than its body (Google it to see!) We also saw some cool critters, like this beetle:



...And also some cool plants. Lily's really into plants, but even I can appreciate their numerous and varied forms, especially in as biodiverse a place as Ecuador...



Flower-on-a-stem, within a leaf:



After soaking and resting and acclimatizing at Papallacta, I felt a lot better and we trooped back to Quito to meet up with our guide and start climbing mountains... More on that in posts to come.

Labels: art, arthropods, birdies, critters, ecuador, hot springs, plants, south america, travel

The International Year of Planet Earth may have declared a list of "the Earth's ten most spectacular places." At least that's what they're saying at the Discovery Channel's new Discovery Earth site, where they have a rundown of all ten (with photos). (No mention of it at the IYPE site, though: It may be that the Discovery Channel is just highlighting ten of the many, many U.N. World Heritage sites... their language is unclear as to who decided on these particular ten.)

Regardless, the photos will whet your appetite. With my visits in bold, they are:

• The Giant's Causeway, Northern Ireland (posts on NOVA Geoblog)
• Wadi Al-Hitan (Valley of the Whales), Egypt (Eric's been posting on this recently)
• Lake Baikal, Siberia (deep, big)
• Komodo National Park, Indonesia (big monitor lizards; my friend Kenny has been)
• Grand Canyon, Arizona, USA (posts on NOVA Geoblog)
• Ilulissat Icefjord, Denmark (glacial beauty)
• Wulingyuan, China (quartzite pillars and indigenous fauna)
• Surtsey, Iceland (46 years old this year)
• Central Amazon, Brazil
• Great Barrier Reef, Australia

Labels: antrim coast, asia, australia, china, fossils, giants causeway, glaciation, grand canyon, ice, reefs, south america, travel, water resources

Just a quick note to say: I'm back!

I left Quito this morning at 10am, and just got back to my apartment in DC around 8pm. Feels good to be back home. I had a fun trip, and I'll tell you all about it, but probably not 'til the semester gets underway. First classes are at noon tomorrow!

Labels: dc, ecuador, south america, travel

This is from the tour operators in charge of me this week...
-CB

Day 01. Quito - Pasochoa
Pick up in your hotel. we depart from Quito at 09h00 in the direction to Volcano Pasochoa, where your trekking begins. As you walk up hill towards it summit (4200m) you will enjoy the views of the neighbours peaks such as Antisana, Rumiñahui and Cotopaxi. You will head south on a easy going trail along the crater edge of this extinct volcano, Condors and other birds of pray are often seen before you descend in a green valley. We arrive in a Aclimatization Center Tambopaxi is located at 3200 m. a refugee in the middle of Cotopaxi and Ruminahui volcanoes.

Day 02.- Limpiopungo, at the base of the Cotopaxi Volcano
Today you will explore the Paramo of the Cotopaxi National Park. Here you will visit the Pre-Inca ruins of El Salitre while enjoying magnificent views of Cotopaxi Glaciers. Afterwards you will continue to Limpiopungo valley and lake. Return. Dinner and overnight.

Day 03.- Climb. Ruminahui & Limpiopungo Lake
Today is the longest day of your trekking tour. You will walk along a trail, up and down following the flanks of Ruminahui peak observing birds of prey and in the horizon the mighty Chimborazo, and Illinizas. Return to Limpiopungo where we dirve to the Cuello de Luna. Dinner and overnight.

Day 04.- Illiniza Ecological Reserve
Drive to the north following the route Illinizas reserve until arrive to la Llovisma, another acclimatization center. Overnight.

Day 05.- Climb Illiniza North - return to Quito
Today you can either drive to the parking place of the Illinizas and walk uphill to the settlement of Illinizas and summit the north peak which is rather easy and recommended as training for those who will attempt Cotopaxi. Somewhere in highlands, your vehicle will be waiting to transfer you back to Quito.
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Here's the view of Illiniza Sur from Illiniza Norte:

Oh, yeah....

Labels: ecuador, mountains, south america, travel

What's the tallest mountain on Earth? Most would say Everest, since it's the highest point above sea level. I mentioned this issue as part of my lead-in to my Mauna Kea post, since some folks might claim Mauna Kea as the tallest, since it rises the most above its base on the oceanic crust of the Pacific Plate. But there's a third contender: Mount Chimborazo, in Ecuador.

The planet Earth is not a perfect sphere; it bulges a bit at the equator (about 13 miles) compared to the poles. The result is that if you look at two mountains of exactly the same elevation, one located at the pole and one at the equator, the equatorial one will be 13 miles further away from the center of the Earth than the polar one. That makes the peak of the tallest equatorial mountain (Chimborazo is at ~1.5 degrees south) the point on Earth that is furthest away from the center of the planet. It is 1.3 miles (2.1 km) further away from the center of the Earth than the summit of Everest is. NPR covered this surprising statistic in an entertaining piece in 2007. However, as the commenter on this post-NPR post notes, it's not just the silicate earth that bulges at the equator, it's the atmosphere, too. So it's not like the air is thinner at Chimborazo than Everest. You may be closer to the Moon atop Chimborazo, but you're not closer to "space" due to all that extra thick atmosphere above your head.

Here's a Google Maps "terrain view" map of Chimborazo (high relief peak east of El Arenal):


I had hoped to "auto-post" this while I'm traveling in Ecuador, for about the same time I would be looking at Chimborazo with my own eyes. However, I got sick over the holidays, and the persistent illness forced me to change my travel plans. I'll still be going to Ecuador -- but only for one week instead of the planned two. And I still hope to catch a glimpse of Mount Chimborazo. Hopefully when I get back to DC, I'll be able to share some photos of this superlative mountain. For now, the map will have to do.

Labels: ecuador, maps, mountains, south america, travel, volcano

I'm sorry, did somebody say there was a holiday this week?

I've been very preoccupied with the spring semester; putting my syllabi together, taking care of committee work before I leave for Ecuador next week. And they tell me the Christmas is coming up, too... It's been busy!

Does anyone have any travel advice for Ecuador? I've had so little time to plan for this trip that I really haven't made any concrete plans other than buying an airplane ticket into Quito. Because I waited so long to start planning, it looks like I missed out on the opportunity to check out the Galapagos on this trip. Very well: I'll be back!

So it looks like I'll be spending most of my time in the Andean highlands, which ain't so bad. My friend Bridget recommended the South American Explorers Club as being a great organization to join for a network of fellow travelers in the country. They even have clubhouses in Quito, Buenos Aires, Cusco, and Lima...

I'd like to spend my time hiking and geologizing out in the mountainous countryside, but have a comfy roost for the evenings. Any and all advice would be welcome. Either post in the comments section below, or shoot me an e-mail at:

Labels: ecuador, south america, travel

Christie asks: What are your top ten geological resolutions for the new year?


For me, the list would include:

1. visiting the Galapagos Islands
2. visiting the high Andes (Cotopaxi, Chimborazo), Ecuador
3. finding a cool outcrop of graded beds in the Martinsburg Formation (late Ordovician turbidites in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia) that Rick Diecchio told me about last week
4. "walking on the Moho" in Gros Morne National Park, Newfoundland (late summer)
5. seeing Snowball rocks and Ediacarans on the Avalon Peninsula, Newfoundland (late summer)
6. visiting Egg Mountain paleontological site, Montana
7. joining my colleague Ken Rasmussen's field trip to the Culpeper Basin, a Triassic rift valley in northern Virginia
8. some cool trip next winter break (2009-10): perhaps Patagonia? Or Antarctica?

I've also got some big teaching resolutions:

1. Running a successful and robust Structural Geology course for George Mason University (spring semester).
2. Running a successful and innovation Environmental Geology course for NOVA (spring semester).
3. Running a successful and safe Regional Field Geology of the Northern Rocky Mountains course for NOVA (summer semester).
4. Preparing and running a successful and groundbreaking Honors Historical Geology course linked with English Literature 242 at NOVA, where the English professor and I will bridge the two subjects with readings of Lyell, Darwin, "A Pair of Blue Eyes," and others (fall semester).

On other topics:

1. Finish my M.S.S.E. degree (July)
2. Buy a house
3. Put together a series of geology 'vodcasts' on local geology
4. Write a few freelance articles
5. Publish one cartoon per month in EARTH
6. Prepping (cutting and polishing) a backlog of rock samples from all over the place
7. Successfully moving the geology department into our new building

Labels: canada, ecuador, geology, msse, newfoundland, nova, south america, teaching, travel, valley and ridge, virginia

Recommendation: Check out today's ensemble of cool photos of Bolivia from the quirky site Oddee.com.

Labels: salt, south america, websites

Would you like a little geoblogosphere with your coffee this morning?

There's some great stuff out there today...

Andrew Alden (Geology.About.com) showcases the Fransiscan melange on a trip to Shell Beach.

Watch Perito Moreno glacier do some AWESOME calving at En Morrenas (Spanish-language geoblog). Watch the whole thing for perspective (3 minutes), but the really spectacular collapse occurs at ~2 minutes into the video. Watch the splash and watch the huge chunks of ice go zinging off into the surrounding air. Wild!

Dave Petley (Dave's Landslide Blog) reviews the dangers of a collapse of a volcanic flank in the Canary Islands, and what it means for Atlantic Ocean tsunami risk.

And for the geobloggers in the house, Chris proposes getting together in January at a science blogging conference in North Carolina. I think this could be cool. I just signed up.

Time for another cup of coffee... Good morning!

Labels: blogs, california, geology, glaciation, landslide, meetings, north carolina, south america

Check out these amazing images of the ashy flood deposits from Chaiten volcano that have buried Chaiten town. The Volcanism Blog, by the way, is extremely consistent in quality and focus, and I tip my hat to them for doing such a great job. If you haven't already discovered that site, you should spend some time checking out their other posts too.

Labels: blogs, south america, volcano

Holy cow! Chaiten is continuing to erupt, and witnesses are posting some incredible photographs of the event.

I highly recommend you check out these two sites, which I am only aware of thanks to James Annan who posted the links at his Empty Blog.

Seriously: check them out. It's like Independence Day down there.

Labels: news, south america, volcano

Whoa! Chaiten volcano in Chile has been erupting for a few days. It's a big'un: Argentina's getting some ash from its extrusive neighbor. Check out the coverage on the volcanism blog, or via NASA's Earth Observatory. UPDATE: also from the volcanism blog.

Labels: south america, volcano

The New York Times has a piece this morning about dinosaur tourism in Argentinian Patagonia. Basically the gist of the article is that Jorge Calvo, an Argentinian geologist & paleontologist, is encouraging tourists to get involved in excavating dinosaur fossils as a way of paying the bills and getting the beasts out of the ground. Not everyone agrees with the approach, and the article quotes another Argentinian paleontologist who call's Calvo's tourist-extracted fossils "hostages."

It's also accompanied by a slideshow of photos.

Labels: dinosaurs, fossils, south america, tourism